Laptop Lunches

We packed a simple lunch in our Laptop Lunches lunch box today:

We packed:

• cheese crackers
• cereal bar
• vanilla yogurt and mini chocolate chips in the mini container
• apples and strawberries
• a chicken and spinach sandwich
• ice water (not pictured)

Today is also the last day to enter my GIVEAWAY! Good luck!

Happy Friday!

We had quite a busy week and I am very thankful it is Friday. I am sure the kids feel the same and I wanted to pack them as fun end of the week lunch to brighten their day at school!

We packed our Easylunchboxes with yellow peppers and carrots, Pirate Booty, strawberries, a tangerine with a happy face, a sandwich wrapped in wax paper (so it won't get soggy since the strawberries are in the same compartment) and as a special treat a Milkini chocolate bar from Germany!

My oldest son also needed snack today and we packed his in our Lunchbot Trio: Carrots and yellow peppers on lettuce, crackers, half a coconut cereal bar and some American Cheese.

Have a wondeerful weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

We packed very simple Valentine's Lunches in our Easylunchboxes this morning:

Mini Orange and Cranberry breakfast muffins topped with a chocolate heart from yesterday, strawberry hearts and a peanut butter and jelly heart pocket with chocolate decorations.

I added Lunchbox Love Cards of course to make this lunch extra special !

We also packed our yumbox again. Today we packed a Chobani Champions Strawberry tube with chocolate decorations, strawberry hearts, carrots with a big apple heart, mini sandwiches and a cereal yogurt bar. 

Valentine's Lunch

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day!
My kids are getting bigger and the boys did not want any "frilly" Valentine's Lunches this year so I tried to keep it simple and used melted chocolate to decorate ;)

First I melted some chocolate and piped simple chocolate hearts onto parchment paper. It is really easy and I did it this morning while having coffee and popped them in the freezer for a couple of minutes to harden.

For the two older boys I packed Easylunchboxes with Naturebox Cranberry Almond Bites, a half a red pear with a small hear cut out and heart shaped peanut butter and jelly pocket sandwiches. I decorated the sandwich with a small amount of chocolate and added a few of the chocolate hearts I had made earlier. Of course, as always, we packed ice water and yogurt as well!

For my youngest son I packed our yumbox with a cereal bar, mini heart sandwiches, a few Naturebox Cranberry Almond bites, apple pieces, carrots with an apple and carrot heart, a mini apple skewer and half a red pear with a heart cut out. I added a few chocolate hearts as well for decoration and he loved it when he saw it before school :)

I also added some Lunchbox Love Cards to sweeten their lunches and cannot wait to hear what their trivia was today!

Elephants & Pandas

Lunches were packed fast this morning since we all woke up feeling tired.
Coffee here I come!

My son wanted a lunch similar to this yubo lunch so packed him vanilla yogurt, chocolate shavings and Naturebox Orange Crush Granola and a Lunch Punch Elephant sandwich with a chocolate chip eye standing on a vanilla chocolate chip cereal bar. He also brough ice water in a thermos!

We also packed our new yumbox today which seems perfect so far for my small appetite first grader! He chose vanilla yogurt, oranges, carrots and apples, a yogurt cereal bar and half a pretzel bagel with cream cheese for lunch today. I added a chocolate heart as a special treat for today as well. He has ice water in a thermos packed in his lunch bag, too.

I love that this lunchbox has so many small compartments! My son felt overwhelmed with the bigger lunchboxes and he loves this 6 compartment box. Less food but more choice!

Lunchbox Love Review and Giveaway

If you read my blog on a regular basis you know that we love our Lunchbox Love Cards!
My kids love reading them and I love that they bring them back home to show me the trivia on the back and we always have a great conversation starter after school!

A Lunchbox Love Card adds just a little extra love to your lunch and puts a smile on your child's face!

This is a very simple lunch in an Easylunchbox containing strawberries, Goldfish crackers and a Pepperoni sandwich but the Lunchbox Love card adds the special touch I couldn't add with picks or designs that morning!

There are so many different sets and I always find just the perfect card to say what I feel!

This card was absolutely perfect for the National Peanut Butter Day lunch I made!

Lunchbox Love Cards also have seasonal cards like sets for Christmas and Thanksgiving but also for Valentine's Day! Wouldn't it be fun to add a special Valentine's Lunchbox Love Card to your kid's or loved one's lunch? Find out how you can win some at the end of my post and

Make every day Valentine's day with Lunchbox Love!

I have been thinking about Valentine's Day a lot. Because I have 3 boys. In 1st, 2nd and 5th Grade and they have already told me: no smootchy, girly lunches for Valentine's Day!

So, I was standing in my kitchen trying to think of a way to pack a lunch or snack for Valentine's Day without red hearts, doilies and lip picks. And then I stumbled upon Susanne Kaluza's post about crackerbread and knew what I wanted to do:

I baked some heart shaped crackerbread (thanks for the inspiration Susanne!), made some hot and crispy oatmeal bars (recipe on the blog soon!), grabbed the delicious Eleanor's Apple Crumble snack mix from our graze box and a red pear (which are my kid's favorites right now. They are incredibly juicy and sweet!). I also added a chocolate heart (it is Valentine's Day afterall) and cut a small heart into the pear. I did sneak one heart pick in there but I think overall it is a very sweet and manly Valentine's lunch!

Our lunch is packed in an ECOlunchbox and of course I added a Lunchbox Love Valentine's Day card to finish the Lunch with Love :)

But now the exciting part:

Lunchbox Love Cards generously is offering you the chance to win some Lunchbox Love Cards of your own! 

Just enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway below and Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Giveaway is open to all readers in the US and Canada. I will email the winner and you have 48 h to respond. If you do not respond to my email I will re-draw a different winner!

Santa Sandwiches

4 more days until Christmas and my kids are already so excited!
I packed them Santa Claus lunches today after they have been singing "Santa Claus is Coming To Town..." for days now :)

We packed Santa Grilled cheese sandwiches in our Easylunchboxes today with orange slices, popcorn and a Trader Joe's dye-free candy cane cookie and one mini chocolate Santa Claus! They are also bringing ice water and a drinkable yogurt.

More Santa Sandwiches but this time with lettuce, mustard and chicken. The sides are the same: oranges with a mini Santa chocolate, popcorn and a Trader Joe's Cookie :) 

I also packed some more of our Christmas Lunchbox Love notes!

Today is the last day of school before Winter Break so from my family to yours:

Day 5: Ham & Cucumber Sandwich Pockets

Happy Thursday! It is Day 5 of our Challenge and today we packed Ham and Cucumber sandwiches, yum!

The kids are still loving this week and are trying to come up with alternatives!

Since today is Nikolaus Day in Germany and Nikolaus came to us, too, we packed a Nikolaus lunch for today's challenge!

We packed penguin crackers, candy cane shaped pretzels, small glazed gingerbread and a sandwich pocket filled with ham and cucumbers in our Easylunchboxes. We also added two mini chocolates since it is a special day! We packed as always ice water and a yogurt to make this lunch complete.

Trick or Treat Halloween Blog Hop

Halloween is just 2 weeks from today and my kids are already busy planning their costumes and Anticipation is running high at my house. My kids love every Halloween themed lunch these days and I am excited that Bento Bloggers & Friends is having a Halloween Blog Hop today to give everyone some ideas for Halloween lunches :)

Read through my post and at the end click the Blog Hop button to see what my friend Rina packed for lunch!

But first, here is what I packed for lunch today in our yubo lunchbox:

I made a spooky haunted house filled with chocolate spread and decorated with melted chocolate and caramel window shutters. The witch is flying into the night lit up by cheese cracker stars and of course a moon. Also packed are vanilla yogurt with a frozen peach yogurt pumpkin in the middle and a scary purple radish.

The yogurt and frozen pumpkin are fun to make and very easy! My friend Michelle posted a great tutorial on her page for pumpkin shaped frozen pumpkin yogurt  HERE. I opted for peaches to color my yogurt since my kids have a food dye intolerance but cannot wait to try pumpkin yogurt ones, yum! I simply bought a pumpkin shaped ice cube tray at my local Dollar Tree and then added plain vanilla yogurt and about 4 slices of frozen peaches into my food processor. 

I mixed it until light orange and filled it into the ice cube tray. I popped one yogurt pumpkin out this morning and added it to the yogurt. The yogurt ice cube will melt but normally keeps it's shape until lunch time and will keep the yogurt cold in the meantime :)

I found these colorful purple radishes at a local farm and could not resist carving them since their purple skin was just perfect for Halloween. I just used a vegetable knife and carved a face in the radish and lifted off the purple skin to reveal the white inside :)

I hope my kids will enjoy this spooky Halloween lunch and I hope you enjoyed it, too!

Now please click on the button below to find out what Rina from BentoSchoolLunches made!

Spooky Lunch

Halloween is just around the corner and we had some fun picking out Halloween picks for this lunch. We  packed pumpkin cheese crackers, ghost vanilla yogurt with chocolate sprinkles (since our store was out of Chobani Champions Chocolate Chunk yogurt which we love), spider apples and a pumpkin shaped sandwich. I added the face later since we had not enough time for a cut out this morning.

The ghost and pumpkin picks as well as the spider are from the Dollar Store. My friend Ludicrous Mama from Biting the Hand that Feeds You introduced me to these. The ghosts and pumpkins are a peg game (contains 14 - 7 of each) and the spider ring comes in a pack of 50. Most Dollar Stores here also carry the pumpkin sandwich cutter. An inexpensive way to dress up a regular lunch and make it just right for the season :)

Angry Bird Lunch

My son asked me for an Angry Bird lunch yesterday and this was my first try in our new Yubo lunchbox :)

We packed a cheese stick with a red Angry Bird ring, a Salami and Cheese red Angry Bird Sandwich with Nori accents (inspired by Obento Momma), Vanilla yogurt with some mini chocolate chips and angry bird cheese crackers.

If you would like to see more Angry Bird Lunches:

• head over to Obento Momma who posted a linky at the end of her post :)
• and check out this lunch from Becoming a Bentoholic today!

Birthday Bento

My son is turning 6 today! I cannot believe it!

Of course we needed a celebratory lunch and packed a chocolate sandwich (my Mom would pack those as a treat for me and my sister on special occasions), popcorn, some cookies and Unreal chocolate covered peanuts. He also has ice water, yogurt and a small veggie snack :)

Happy Birthday!

This lunch was really quick and easy! I had a cake shaped cookie cutter but it is just as easy to cut the crust off the bread with a sharp vegetable knife. I added the chocolate my Mom sent me but you can also use melted chocolate as a filling. It will harden and it is delicious :) I then piped the decorations with melted chocolate on the bread. It takes about 10 min in the fridge to dry. The candle on top is a cupcake topper and I packed freshly popped popcorn and some treats as well. Wish I could see his face when he sees it at lunch :)

Chobani Raspberry Chocolate Scones {with Recipe}

It was a rainy weekend and therefore great for baking yummy treats for this week!

If you read my blog regularly you know I love baking with Chobani and using the yummy recipes from Chobani Kitchen. However, I mostly bake spontaneously and never have all the ingredients on hand needed so I tweak them to fit what I have at home.

This time we made Raspberry Lemon Scones with mini chocolate chips based on the Strawberry Scone Recipe! Find the recipe at the end of my post..

My kids love to help and my 5 year old son wanted to make the scones into fun shapes instead of just triangles. I did not mind so he picked a car and a firetruck cookie cutter and helped cut them out.

We had so much fun together in the kitchen!

Here are the cars and firetrucks my son made...

...I also made some round ones to use in our lunches this week! They smelled so good baking we could not wait to try them!

How amazing do these look! And they taste delicious! 

I had a hard time saving some for this weeks lunches. I think I have to bake some more!

Chobani Raspberry Lemon Scones with Mini Chocolate Chips

You will need:

• 3/4 cup Chobani Lemon Greek Yogurt
• 2 c all-purpose flour plus extra for dusting work surface
  (I added a little flax seed to the flour :)
• ¼ c sugar plus 2 T for sprinkling
• 2 t baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp kosher salt
• 4 Tbsp cold unsalted butter cut into ¼-inch cubes
• 1/2 c whole frozen raspberries
  1/4 c mini dark chocolate chips
  
  
  How to make the scones: 
  
  

  Step 1

  Preheat oven to 425°F (Gas Mark 7). In a large bowl whisk together flour, ¼ cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add butter and using a pastry cutter or your fingers, cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles coarse cornmeal.

  Step 2

  Stir in raspberries and mini chocolate chips, then gently incorporate Chobani, taking care not to over mix.

  Step 3

  Turn dough onto a heavily floured work surface. Fold dough on top of itself to knead, 3 to 4 turns, then pat into 1½-in thick rectangle. Fold rectangle into thirds and shape into a 1-in thick circle. Cut into 8 wedges or use cookie cutters to shape your dough instead.

  Step 4

  Arrange wedges/shapes on parchment paper-lined baking sheet and sprinkle tops of scones with remaining 2 T sugar. Bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack before serving.

  
  

  Happy Baking and a good Start into your week!